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One of those four men spent 1,375-days on Pennsylvania's death row before evidence documented that police detectives framed him. Two of those four men spent 20 years in prison before evidence revealed they were innocent. The fourth man -- accused of a killing a cop -- won an acquittal from a jury in 1982 when the only witness against him crumbled in court.
Seventeen of the policemen involved in the arrest or investigation of Abu-Jamal "were disciplined, indicted for crimes, found guilty of committing acts of corruption or brutality or resigned from the department under a cloud of suspicion," stated investigative reporter Dave Lindorff in his 2003 book on the Abu-Jamal case. Lindorff's book "Killing Time" is the first non-partisan book published on this miscarriage of justice.
What, many in Philadelphia's Black community would ask, is the likelihood of corrupt cops not cutting corners to secure the conviction of a person accused of killing a fellow policeman?
The same Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts that found major flaws in 86 Philadelphia death penalty convictions between Abu-Jamal's December 1981 arrest and last October declare that not a single error exists anywhere in the Abu-Jamal case -- the murder conviction sparking the most controversy worldwide.
Pennsylvania courts, for example, find no fault in prosecutors improperly excluding Blacks from Abu-Jamal's trial jury, or allegations of manipulating evidence and making secret deals with alleged eyewitnesses -- all fundamental fair trial violations producing favorable actions by those courts for defendants in numerous other cases.
Additional evidence of judicial impropriety against Abu-Jamal is evident in Pennsylvania State and federal courts voiding 22 death sentences because of failures by defense lawyers to present any mitigating evidence for their clients during the death penalty phase hearing following guilty verdicts in capital cases.
Voiding convictions for this reason is called procedural fairness where courts accept the guilty verdict but seek to ensure that all procedures are properly followed.
Suspiciously, despite voiding those 22 death sentences, state and federal courts found no fault in the failure of Abu-Jamal's trial lawyer to present any mitigating evidence during the penalty phase hearing.
The judge for Abu-Jamal's trial, the infamous Albert Sabo, holds the national record for presiding over the most death penalty trials.
While courts have overturned two-thirds of those capital convictions in Sabo's court, including citing mistakes or misconduct by Sabo himself, Pennsylvania state courts claim Sabo made no errors in Abu-Jamal's case.
Federal courts have voided Abu-Jamal's death sentence citing errors by Sabo when providing death penalty phase instructions to the jury.
However, Abu-Jamal remains on death row because Philadelphia prosecutors are seeking to reinstate his death sentence. Because of harsh death row isolation restrictions, Abu-Jamal has not hugged his wife and children for over 20 years.
Injudicious Judges
Courts -- state and federal -- have repeatedly altered and/or abrogated established law to block Abu-Jamal receiving fair trial relief granted to other defendants raising the same legal challenges.
Precedent, or following established law, is supposedly the foundation of U.S. jurisprudence. Another foundation of U.S. law is requiring a fair trial to establish guilt or innocence.
A prime example of the alter-the-law-to-undermine-Abu-Jamal dynamic is the 2008 ruling by a federal 3rd Circuit Appeals Court panel that created a new legal standard for persons challenging racist jury selection practices by prosecutors.
